The most outrage Principal Ken Jenkins can muster is admitting that “a classroom is a better environment for that kind of dialogue”—it figures. Verani herself says:

I’m showing them in a democracy how to exercise dissent […] it was to show another point of view.

You know, like the Wesboro Baptist Church. They’re just offering another point of view; what’s the big deal? The big deal, obviously, is the venue. That the differences between a graduation ceremony and a political forum are lost on this education professional alone is enough to raise serious questions about her basic competence—or, it would be if it were sincere. The more likely scenario is that this is merely a ruse; whenever leftists are held accountable for controversial conduct, they fall back on some non-controversial value, like freedom of speech.

It was not against them, at a personal level. It was to show another point of view.

I’ll give you that much, Ms. Verani: it wasn’t about them. It was about you. Your arrogance. Your ego. Your political agenda. Your sense of entitlement.

You have so little regard for the accomplishments, the courage, or the feelings of your students and their families that you saw no problem interrupting their day—a deeply personal occasion they should have been able to treasure untarnished the rest of their lives—with your political agenda. You could not set aside partisanship even for the handful of hours it took to honor your students, in an assembly that was simply about the character, discipline, and sacrifice it takes to protect freedom—not about the Afghanistan War, not about the Iraq War, not about any particular mission those students may be sent on in the future.

You thought American soldiers understood the freedom of speech so little, they needed you to demonstrate it for them.

Given her shameful conduct in a patriotic, non-partisan assembly, one cringes wondering what goes on in her classroom. In a sane country, the decision would already have been made that Marybeth Verani would never set foot in an American classroom again. But if recent memory and the propagandistic state of modern public education is anything to go by, that won’t be the case (the principal says they’re “reviewing [their] options”). We can be sure the fallout won’t shame the education establishment or their cronies out of scamming the taxpayers, either.

But it should. The honor of what should be revered as a noble profession lies in shambles, and will remain so until good teachers decide education as a whole should once again deserve the admiration its apologists demand.